{"id":3713,"date":"2016-05-21T10:40:39","date_gmt":"2016-05-21T15:40:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/?p=3713"},"modified":"2016-05-21T10:40:39","modified_gmt":"2016-05-21T15:40:39","slug":"whats-in-a-name","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/?p=3713","title":{"rendered":"What’s In a Name?"},"content":{"rendered":"

William Shakespeare’s character Juliet Capulet asked “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”<\/em><\/p>\n

This morning on Pinterest I found mixed media abstract art by US artist Jeanne Myers<\/a><\/span>\u00a0 \u00a0There were several lovely images of her abstract art on that page, and looking closer to see if they involved stitch, and wanting to know more,\u00a0I went to her website. \u00a0I was immediately struck by her current work<\/a><\/span>\u00a0titles, seemingly plucked out of thin air, like these examples – \u00a0” Sparkling Cider”, Frayed Edges”, “Mr. Dodd Said”, Collapsible Landscape” and “Dressing For Dinner”. \u00a0I love the works, and I love the titles. There is a cohesiveness about her vision – but the titles don’t coalesce into any meaningful ‘story’, at all, or do they by their unrelated strangeness? \u00a0And does this matter? No- but it’s highly relevant when you know how she thinks, as they do tie in with Jeanne’s vision+process outline in her artist statement. \u00a0It begins “Alchemy – a power or process that changes or transforms something in a mysterious way”\u00a0<\/em>\u00a0This driving concept underlies a description of her process she likens to archeological excavation, of digging through layers, peeling layers away to reveal something which is mysterious, not known or understood. \u00a0(It does not\u00a0<\/em>involve stitch, by the way)\u00a0 \u00a0She knows that when the painting has finally been revealed – the collapsible landscape has emerged – and that excavation is complete. \u00a0 I wonder how she chooses a title. \u00a0Does she open a book and just choose a phrase from that page? \u00a0Does she choose a favourite word and put another with it – like ‘Collapsible Landscape’ for instance? \u00a0 Perhaps she shuts her eyes while reading the newspaper and takes a pencil stab at some text? The possibilities are infinite.<\/p>\n

I recently wrote of Richard McVetis<\/a> <\/span>who gave the collective title Units of Time<\/a> to a group of 3D cream wool covered 6cm cubes embellished with fine stitchery, and each one had the subtitle, if you like, of something like “20:45” – this being his record or estimate of how many hours and minutes it had taken him to make that one. \u00a0I thought that was clever. \u00a0You could use the same rationale with completion date, perhaps. \u00a0Either approach offers unlimited possibilities, but what happens when you make two or more works that each took 43:15? \u00a0Do you then go to 43:15 #1 and 43:15 #2, …. ?<\/p>\n

One of my series of art quilts I call “Colour Memories” \u00a0some of which are\u00a0here<\/a><\/span>,<\/p>\n

\"Ora<\/a><\/p>\n

“Ora Banda” 1992. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0127cm x 150cm. Collection Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum, Golden CO.<\/h6>\n

Most are named after a particular place that I’ve lived in or visited that I associate with that group of colours. \u00a0It was reasonable at the time, but as my focus, chosen techniques and colour palette changed, it seems no longer applicable. \u00a0With later series I’ve gone with for example ‘Tracks’ and then added the sequential number. \u00a0A bit boring maybe. \u00a0\u00a0I really feel its time for a new approach to the challenge of finding or devising titles for new work.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

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William Shakespeare’s character Juliet Capulet asked “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” This morning on Pinterest I found mixed media abstract art by US artist Jeanne Myers\u00a0 \u00a0There were several lovely images of her abstract art on that page, and looking closer to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6uxpF-XT","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3713"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3713\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3717,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3713\/revisions\/3717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}